Hell's Angel
by AllyKat D
Summary: Logan meets a strange female vigilante whom he believes is a mutant. Only Nightcrawler has an inkling of the truth.
1. Default Chapter

Hell's Angel

**Hell's Angel** By Allykat 

Chapter One 

"Eight ball, right corner pocket," Logan said and shifted his cigar to the other side of his mouth. He mentally blocked out the noise in the crowded bar, leaned over the table and sighted down the cue stick. To sink the eight ball without scratching he had to give the cue ball a bit of English. A tricky shot, but he'd done it before.

His opponent, a biker named Jack, grimaced and nodded. Jack seemed decent enough, but there was something about his scent that set Logan's senses on edge. He couldn't say why, except that under a faint smell of cigarettes and laundry soap on his clothing, the guy smelled like something dead and putrid. At times the smell had been so strong, Logan found it difficult to focus on the game. Maybe he just needed to take a shower more often. Logan shrugged off the oddity as all his other senses told him the guy was normal even if he was a bit of a low-life asshole. Jack was a little too rough and sarcastic toward women for Logan's tastes and he certainly didn't mind taking the guy's money.

Logan slid the cue stick through thumb and forefinger and gently tapped the cue ball. It rolled across the table, clipped the eight ball and rolled it into the corner pocket. Logan stood up, took a puff of his cigar, exhaled and squinted through the smoke."That's fifty bucks you owe me, bub."

"Damn. Luck of the devil," Jack grumbled, pulled out his wallet and began to count out fives and tens.

"The devil ain't got nothin' ta' do with it, bub."

The bar door opened and Jack casually looked up, then did a double take. His hands froze, his eyes growing wide."Oh, shit." He took two steps back. "How the hell did she find me?" A wave of fear radiated off him and struck Logan almost like a physical blow.

"Looks like you've just seen a ghost," Logan said.

"A ghost?" Jack replied with a strangled laugh. "This is much worse." 

Before Logan could comment, an odd scent wafted toward him. It was pure, fresh, and a scent he associated more with the open air of his beloved Canadian wilderness than with humans. He turned and saw that a woman had entered the bar. She was dressed oddly even for a Hardcase patron. She wore camouflage tucked into black, airborne-laced combat boots. A scruffy brown bomber jacket covered a military-green tank top and a set of dog tags hung around her neck from a silver chain. Wavy, jet-black hair fell down her back and over her shoulders. For a moment she paused to survey the crowd until her gaze lit on Jack. Like a tactical missile, she locked on him and started forward.Sweat broke out on Jack's forehead and his body twitched once.Logan raised one assessing eyebrow; maybe Jack had smacked around the wrong woman. Logan had known women just as beautiful, like Mariko or Silver Fox, but there was something different about this one that he couldn't put his finger on. An aura of purpose radiated from her, determination set the angle of her brows and her cat-like eyes. Logan could detect no anger in her demeanor. Whatever she had for Jack, he could discount anger, but there certainly wasn't any misplaced affection.

"That yer old lady?" Logan joked, at the same time wondering how a jerk like Jack could end up with a woman like that. 

"Uh, no man, she ain't my old lady." 

That was a relief. "Friend of yours?"

"This chick ain't got no friends." With that enigmatic reply, Jack stuffed his wallet back into his pocket. "Uh, I'll be seeing ya' later.If there is a later." Spinning about on one foot, Jack bolted for the rear exit 

Like a hunting cat on the scent of wounded prey, the woman crossed the room without increasing her purposeful stride and ignored the wolf whistles and stares that followed in her wake. When she drew close to him, he detected a faint whiff of gun cleaner. Under her bomber jacket she was packing and judging by the two almost imperceptible bulges at her sides, she was packing double. 

"I didn't know Jack had an old lady," commented one voice.

"She looks primed to whup his ass but good," another said. "Maybe he was getting something on the side." 

It appeared to Logan that she had something more final in mind for Jack than an ass whuppin'.

"She looks like a wild-thing to me, I don't think I'd be looking for anything on the side if she were mine," said a voice from the back.

"I wouldn't want to tangle with her," said a heavy shouldered biker playing darts.

"I would," shouted the voice from the back of the room, laughter followed.

The woman didn't acknowledge any of this, not so much as a blink or a twitch, almost as if these men didn't exist. She passed by the pool table on her way to the rear exit and Logan's hand shot out and grabbed her left wrist. Her skin was smooth and her arm slender under the jacket's sleeve.

"I don't know what Jack did to get you all riled like this, darlin', but maybe you should just hang out an' think about it. How 'bout you join me an' I'll buy ya' a beer?" Something moved under her hair, rippling the thick locks. Logan thought he heard a tiny giggled then it was gone.

"Let. Me. Go," she said, enunciating each word slowly as if speaking to an imbecile. Her soft voice held a hint of a threat and no fear. Dark blue eyes studied him and Logan had the feeling they didn't like what they saw.

"Do you know what yer doin'?" he asked, disconcerted. He didn't let it show.

"Do you?" she answered. Her gaze never wavered.

Something that felt like a jolt of electricity struck the hand Logan had clamped on her wrist. Liquid heat traveled up his arm, it felt like his blood were boiling and his skin scorched. The sensation sped up his arm and settled across his chest. Logan inhaled a strangled gasp. Sharp twisting stabs of remorse and guilt pierced him.The things he had done over the course of decades were magnified while quick pictures flicked through his mind like a slideshow. For the first time, Logan questioned those things he had done, making him doubt every death decision he had made. His knees sagged.Her gaze continued to hold his. He could not look away. Logan had never felt so exposed or vulnerable, it was as if the locks securing his soul had been torn away and his life's deeds bared for all to see and judge. A silent snarl lifted his lips. Was she a mutant? He couldn't pull away from her and he clenched his free hand. Let's see how she dealt with adamantium, a shame to have to do this in Hardcases's place.Then the woman leaned closed, her face inches from his.

"I can sense that inside, you're an ethical man, a brutal but just man, but in this instance your concern is misplaced," she whispered, her breath fanned against his cheek, her lips almost brushing his earlobe. "This is none of your business. Let's keep it that way." Another jolt of hot current raced through Logan's arm.She pulled her wrist from his weakened grasp and continued unmolested though the bar and out the back door.

"And he strrrr-rikes out," a bar regular who knew Logan, hunkered down like a ball player and swung an imaginary bat.

"Looks like Logan met his match," Hardcase commented from across the room.

"Not even Don Juan scored every time, bub," Logan replied, hiding his uncertainty. He popped up a middle finger in Hardcase's direction.

"'Pears to me like that's the one thing you ain't getting tonight, buddy, at least not from her."Hardcase brought up a bottle of whisky and a shot glass."You might as well have another drink, this one is on me."

"Later," he said, and looked toward the exit.

"Don't go there, Logan," Hardcase said. "It's never a good idea to get involved in a domestic dispute. Maybe Jack'll get his due and she'll kick his ass--she looks like she could."

"I don't believe this is domestic." Logan pushed away from the pool table and managed to walk to a small bar table without falling on his face. Guilt was a burden he rarely confronted and the strength in which it had struck left him reeling, barely able to think straight. He stared at the half-full mug. He slugged down the rest of the tepid beer then grabbed his leather jacket. _This was none of your business_, he reminded himself as he headed out the back door. She had to be a mutant and if she was a mutant bent on trouble, well that was what the X-Men prevented. _I'm doin' my duty_, he told himself. _Ah hell, I ain't fooling no one, I want to know what she did to me._

Outside, the rear alleyway behind the bar was deserted, lit only by the dim overhead glow from a bare bulb that had attracted a posse of buzzing moths. Their distorted shadows flitted about on the broken pavement. Logan paused and breathed deeply. He could detect the petroleum smell of automobile pollution, trash from a nearby dumpster, and underneath it the woman's unique scent and the putrid scent of Jack. The two weren't difficult to track and he started off at a jog.

Logan tracked them four blocks south of Hardcase's bar into an area of abandoned buildings and found both in a short, dead end alleyway. Jack cringed against a far brick wall, scrambling against it, ripping the flesh from his fingers in a frantic attempt to escape the woman. The woman advanced and on her shoulder sat… something, Logan couldn't tell in the dim light. It might be a bird, but the silhouette reminded him more of a tiny bat and its scent was odd, like Jack's scent. It squeaked and darted under her hair. 

A dozen feet from Jack the woman stopped, reached inside her jacket and pulled out a neat little .22 fitted with what appeared to be a homemade silencer snugged to the barrel._Serious_, he thought. _Professional hitman hardware. Quiet and efficient_. He had just seconds to diffuse this situation before it turned lethal, but her next words made him pause.

"_Spiritui Sancto, estote meum castellumque preaesidium contra omnium hostes_," she began.

_What the hell? Latin?_ Logan thought.

"No!" Jack cried. "I've cleaned up… I've changed.Is… is this about those women? I didn't mean to kill them, they asked for it, they were just whores and I was havin' a bit of fun. Please don't!" Jack's screech of fear was inhuman, and Logan suppressed an urge to plant two fingers in his ears.

"Your transgressions are not mine to judge," the woman replied. 

"Yeah, you're only the flamin' judge, jury and executioner," Logan muttered under his breath. He'd seen dozens like her in his life; the only different is they didn't spout Latin before putting a bullet in their victims' heads. _And you couldn't be accused of the same_? commented the tiny voice of conscience that Logan decided to ignore.

"_Magnificant anima tu in quisque magnicium opum. Gloria in excelsis Deo_" the woman continued. Jack howled in pain, his eyes squeezed shut, his body frozen in mid-movement as if held by an invisible force. 

Definitely Latin. Where was Elf when he needed him? Logan did know Spanish, so he could translate a little of it--something about magnifying the Lord or some such mumbo jumbo hocus-pocus bullshit. Maybe she was one of those crazy right wing religious freaks like that whack-out priest he'd heard of who axed up a few punks who came to confession [See Ennis's "Punisher"]. Logan couldn't help but feel a twinge of regret that she wasn't something more than a back alley assassin. Time to pull Jack's ass out of the fire, he said to himself.

The woman held up the gun and took aim.

"I think you should reconsider, darlin'," he said, stepping fully into the alleyway. "Maybe we let the authorities deal with him. What do ya' say?"

The woman flinched toward him and the thing under her hair climbed out and darted into the air. The woman's momentary distraction seemed to release Jack from whatever spell held him, and he gathered himself and launch forward. The woman recovered, fell to one knee and pulled the .22's trigger. At point blank range, the bullet ripped into Jack's check and neck, tearing out fist-size chunk of flesh and muscle. Blood flew in a red spray. The wound should have been mortal, she'd hit the jugular judging by the amount of blood, but he just staggered back, hunkered down like a wounded animal and snarled, his lips stretching over sharp canines.

"May God have mercy!" the woman shouted, and took aim again. 

By this time, Jack was no longer Jack.

Jack's clothing split and ripped, and his skin fell away in long strips like soggy, rotten bark.The thing that emerged reminded Logan what he'd seen when he was whupin' butt on the N'Garai. Jack's skin was greyish-brown, smooth and hairless and he stood upright on dog-like hind legs. Tusks curved from a lipless snout and spikes poked up through his spine and rippled down his back. Fingers elongated into talons and eyes enlarged and bugged from a vaguely human-like skull. A set of leathery wings shot through the skin on his back, tearing through flesh and rising, talon-tipped, into the air. 

"Motherf--!" **SNIKT!** Six adamantium claws sprung from his knuckles, and he fell into a combat crouch.

Logan didn't know what the woman expected and wouldn't have been surprised if she ran screaming from Jack—or whatever he was—but she seem more dismayed than surprised or frightened by the transformation. The flying thing that had been on her shoulder swooped down toward Jack and hissed. 

Jack attacked the woman and the tiny creature, reaching for them with sharp talons and a gaping maw lined with needle sharp teeth. The woman leapt backward, landed on her back and skidded past Logan and all the while emptied the .22's clip into the thing then drew a Baretta 92 FS from a body rig and emptied that clip. In Logan's quick appraisal, the bullets did nothing except to piss off Jack. 

Jack flew by, ignoring Logan, his focus on the woman and the little creature. Logan took advantage and sprung onto the thing's back and with a downward jab, sank his claws up to his knuckles into its neck. Something black and dusty gushed from the wounds and its foul stench felt close to burning the hair out of his nose.He turned his head, and hung on. An angry high-pitched screeched nearly busted his eardrums. Gritting his teeth, he struck a second time into the back.Using his claws in the creature to maintain his balance, he twisted at the waist and raked a left hand through the membranous area of a leathery wing. 

The creature yowled, trying to dislodge Logan with a clawed hand while it snatched at the woman with the other, grabbed her by the shoulders and tried to pull her head into its mouth. The woman's little creature darted down and latched itself onto the things face and held on, tearing out chucks of flesh. Shrieking again, Jack drew back and pawed at its face. Out of the bomber jacket sleeve the woman popped out a tiny gun and shoved it into the creature's mouth and pulled the trigger as rapidly as she could.

Jack screeched, fanned his wings and rose up the woman in his talons, Logan on its back and the little creature on its face. He flew erratically trying to use his one uninjured wing to gain altitude. Ten feet up, the creature then released the woman, did a belly roll and dumped Logan then flapped away.

"Oof!" Logan hit the pavement on his back next to the woman. 

He lay for a second to catch his breath, then sat up and sheathed his claws. The wounds from the creature hurt like hell, and his healing factor seemed to be having a hard time. He checked himself and finding nothing that wouldn't heal given time he looked at the woman. She lay motionless on her side in a pool of blood, her thick hair falling over face—if she still has a face, Logan amended remembering that Jack had been doing his best to munch it off. Logan touched her back then pushed aside her hair, felt for a pulse on her neck and found none, her skin cold clammy. 

"Son of a bitch," he muttered.

The woman was dead.

======================================================

Latin translation: I haven't had an opportunity to practice much Latin since college, so I apologize if this isn't perfect. "Sancto Spiritu, estote meum castellumque preaesidium contra omnium hostes. Magnificant anima tu in quisque magnicium opum. Gloria in excelsis Deo": Holy Ghost, be my fortress and defense against all enemies. My soul magnifies you in every magical work. Glory to God on high.


	2. Chapter Two

Hell's Angel 

By Allykat

Chapter Two

The woman was dead. That wasn't surprising; Jack had ripped into her pretty good. Logan ran his hands over his face. Shit. And now what the hell was he going to do? He couldn't leave her here in the alleyway, and he couldn't call the cops. He could take her body back to the mansion and decide what to do with her from there, but he'd had to explain why he failed to save her and that stuck in his craw. Perhaps Beast would want to take a look at her, maybe they could find out where she came from. Logan felt it his duty to help a mutant, even a dead one.

The woman's little creature flew down and flutter-hovered in the air.It chattered at Logan and he shook his head.An annoyed expression compressed her lips for a moment, then she pointed into the sky with a tiny forefinger. This was the first time Logan got a good look at the thing. It was a tiny female being about the size of a Robin with bat-like wings. Her skin was a brownish-red like a dried blood drop; her short spiky hair was a darker red. Yellow eyes with slit pupils glowed at him and when she smiled she displayed a row of tiny, sharp white teeth. The thing reminded him of a hellish Tinkerbell… or Tinkerhell was more like it.

"Man human?" it asked in a tiny hissing voice. That it could speak at all surprised Logan. It flew down on his hand and stroked his knuckles. "Man fight good with steel claws from hand. Man helped Dee."

Logan had a name now. Dee. That was probably a nickname. "I wouldn't say I helped her. She's dead," he said, wondering if it would understand. Tinkerhell looked at him and cocked her head, a ghost of a smile flitted over her lips then was gone and her face sobered. 

"Dee dead?" she suddenly replied in a whiney, high-pitched hissing voice. It alighted on the woman's shoulder, began petting her hair and mewling piteously, every once in awhile glancing at him to measure his reaction. "Dee dead," it continued to whimper, its little body shuddering. "Dee ddddd-eead. Wahhhhh!" Tiny tears dripped from its hellish eyes.

_Fuck_, Logan thought, _what the hell was he going to do with this thing_? It then alighted on his shoulder and pinched his cheek. "Hey!" He swatted at it and it flew out of range.

"Tzila joking!" it tittered. "Okay, Dee to get up now." Tinkerhell grabbed one lock of the woman's black hair and gave it a hard tug. The woman didn't move. Tinkerhell then crawled down the woman's sleeve and sunk her sharp teeth into her hand.

"What the hell…!" Logan shouted, and raised a hand to smack the creature away but it stuck out its tongue. 

"Dee not dead, silly human man."

The woman's body jerked, and moaning she rolled over and blinked up at Logan._Alive?_ He thought. It hardly seemed possible… unless maybe she too had a mutant healing factor. The front of her jacket was soaked through with blood.Deep fang punctures dented her forehead. Logan was quite certain that a few moments ago she was quite dead.

"Tzila you little bitch," the woman said, her voice weak. "I told you I don't like you biting me."

"Tzila wanted Dee to wake up," the creature said, laughter in her voice. "Go after Argan. Tzila flew after and see where he hid."

"Maybe in a minute." The woman held a hand to her head and sat up. "I don't feel so hot. Damn I hate when this happens."

_No shit_, Logan thought and stared at her a startled moment. "Know what ya' mean. Try getting admantium pulled out through your pores."

"What?" she said and blinked at him. 

"One o' them near death experiences. Darlin'," he said, and crouched next to her to inspect her wounds. "Let's take a look at you before ya' bleed to death on me."

Dee planted a hand on his chest and with more strength than he expected she shoved him away. "Look, I'm fine, no thanks to you," she said and swiped away a lock of hair from her face and in the process streaked a bead of blood across her cheek. It looked like warpaint, and with the nasty glare she was shooting at him, it seemed appropriate.

"As I see it, lady, I just pulled your ass out of a world o' hurt." Logan got to his feet and held out a hand. She ignored it.

"No, you didn't." She got to her hands and knees and grunted. "If you hadn't decided to play Good-fucking-Samaritan none of this would have happened." She staggered to her feet and looked into the empty night sky. "FUCK!" she shouted and stomped a foot, turned and glared at him, a faint bluish glow tinged her eyes. The little creature called Tzila sat cross-legged on the woman's shoulder and made naughty faces at Logan. The woman continued: "You familiar with the term FUBAR, Mr….?"

"Logan. And you cen say that I'm familiar with the term." He stifled a chuckle at her little temper tantrum--reminded him of Jubilee. When he saw her in the bar he would have guessed she was about thirty, now he estimated more like early twenties. He noticed the puncture wounds in her head had completely healed. A few minutes ago she was roadkill.

"Well, Mr. Logan… right now FUBAR is what totally what this situation has become. Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition!This is should have been an easy hit. My boss is going to have a holy cow, an... an... apoplectic fit of universal proportions."She threw up her arms and let them fall back to her side.

"Boss?" Logan echoed. Who did she work for? Was it a cult?

"What? You think I want to do this shit on my own? Hunt down these crazy ass brutes and … and get my head chomped off by some razor-toothed mo-fo? You're friggin' crazier than you look if that's what you think." She stared up at the sky and exhaled a long breath. "Now I have to go after him and this time he'll be expecting me."

"So darlin', you gonna tell me what's going on here?"

"My name is not Darlin', and you've seen enough as it is. You should leave. Buh-bye. Thanks for the help. Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out."

"Is he a N'Garai?" he wondered out loud. Dee's entire body jerked to a sudden stiff halt and she stopped breathing for a moment and just stared at him. 

"What do you know about the N'Garai?" she whispered.

"I've locked horns with 'em a couple of times," he replied. "They make good target practice." 

"Impressive." She looked him up and down as if seeing him for the first time and her demeanor seemed to shift from dislike to guarded respect.

He lifted one eyebrow at her and dug in a pocket and pulled out a cigar then popped a claw and precisely sliced off the very tip of the cigar. "They were a lot easier to kill than Jack."

"That so? Maybe you will be useful."She blinked and gathered herself together. "His name is Argan, not Jack and he is not N'Garai, he's… something else."

"Demon?Vampire?" Logan asked, trying to get clarification. She wasn't lying, but she wasn't telling the whole truth either.

She hesitated a moment and shook her head. "No, if he were a demon or a vampire, my touch would have dispatched him…"

Logan wondered if her touch was what he'd felt in the bar.

She continued: "Argan is something more… worse." She shrugged off her jacket and threw it at him. "Here, hold this." Around her torso she wore a body rig filled with an arsenal of weapons: a K-bar knife, two Barettas and a Sig Sauer. Logan figured he must be slipping, he pegged only two guns. Dee unbuckled the body rig, shrugged it off and shoved it into his arms. "Here, hold this, too."

Then, to Logan's surprise, she slipped off her military green tank top, folded it and placed it in his arms on top of the coat and holster. She wore a simple white bra. She bent down to unlace her boots and slipped them off and put them to the side.

Logan's eyebrows rose. "Uh, darlin'. Shouldn't we get to know each other first before we head into this segment of the relationship?"

"Screw you, Mr. Logan." She reached around and unsnapped her bra. Her bare breasts gleamed in the dim light. She undid her pants and pulled them down to reveal plain cotton underwear. 

"Logan," he corrected. He didn't remember the collar of his t-shirt feeling so tight.

"Whatever."She wiggled out of her underwear and completely unselfconscious of her nudity, folded her socks on top of her underwear. He tried not to stare at her chest. "Anyway," she continued, "you owe me bigtime for screwing up that hit, so at least be useful and hold these until I get back.Make certain no one borrows the hardware." She winked at him and patted the pile. "And try not to get ashes on them." Dee sauntered away and stood with her arms raised. 

What the hell was she doing? "I'm sure streaking naked after Jack, Argan, or whatever he is, will get his attention, but don't you think it'd be better to keep the clothes and the guns? The people who live in this neighborhood aren't exactly friendly, upstandin' citizens."

"Thanks to you, the guns are useless now," she said."Argan and his kind are vulnerable when in human form only to a precise hit in the nerve cluster in the back of the neck. I'm doing this to save on my clothing bill, not to amuse you, Mr. Logan."

Couldn't fool me, darlin'.I'm amused anyway." 

"Why am I not surprised?"

Logan had to wonder how it would help their situation with her running butt naked through a bad New York neighborhood. And what was this mumbo jumbo about a clothing bill? Logan couldn't help but stare; he was male after all. He reached down and shifted an area that had grown uncomfortably tight. He'd have to be dead if an attractive nude female didn't affect him. And if she looked good with her clothes on, she looked better without them. "So is this where you do a naked catch-the-bad-guy ritual dance 'er something?"

"You're a very annoying man."And then like Jack, her body began to change. 

Logan retreated, unaware that he did so until his back bumped up against the building.He ran a hand across his eyes and blinked."Holy shit."

Long wings sprouted like silver-black lotus flowers from her back.Her fingernails elongated to sharp points and the color drained from her skin until it was milky white, almost luminous. A slight tinge of silver-blue colored the skin stretched across a taunt stomach.Her eyes glowed blue and her eyeteeth stretched to long, sharp points. 

"Ain't everyday I watch a beautiful naked woman turn into a bad nightmare."

Glowing blue eyes regarded him with something akin to amusement, and when she spoke her voice had an odd hollow echo to it. "That's funny, Mr. Logan, I would suspect that would describe most of your dates."

It took Logan a moment to realize she was joking on him, but he wasn't provided the opportunity to respond.Her humor quickly faded.She walked up to him, her gait flowing.Her wings folded up behind her.

"If I don't return, Mr. Logan, you need to track Argan down when he returns to human form."She took up one of his hands and stroked his knuckle, her long nails rasping against his skin."Strike him only in the back of the neck."She stepped away, spread her wings and launched into the sky with Tzila flying in small twirls at her side.The little creature seemed overjoyed that her mistress had turned into something from a bad episode of Tales from the Crypt.

Logan shielded a hand over his brow and watched her fly off.He tucked her clothes and guns under one arm and took off at a quick jog, using her scent to guide him when she disappeared from sight.For a half hour he almost lost the scent and backtracked down several alleyways before a high-pitched scream, beyond the level a normal human could hear, caught his attention.A second screech was cut off at mid-point.He couldn't tell if it came from Dee or Jack.

"Son of a bitch," he said and ran down a deserted street, his boot steps echoing between buildings.

An inner voice warned him not to meddle in whatever this was about.Against his better judgment, he decided not to listen and figured he could later berate himself for being a jackass.He stopped at a boarded up window at an old factory, looked up the five-story building and took a deep breath.Jack and Dee's scent came to him ever so faint.He popped a set of claws, stuck them into the plywood and ripped it from the sill.He climbed inside, swearing under his breath at the jagged edged of glass that cut through his hands.The wounds were already healing when he jumped to the damp cement floor and placed the woman's belongings on top of an old crate. At the back of the room he found a door to the stair leading to the roof.He took the stairs two at a time.

At the top of the stairwell, Logan kicked the door open and ran out on to the rooftop.He stopped short.Dee stood over the fallen Argan, her wings outstretched, one had clenched over his head.Tinkerhell stood on Dee's shoulder.

"_Quia fecit mihi magna qui potens est, et sanctum nomen eius._Amen," Dee said, and pressed a finger to Jack's forehead.He writhed and cried as though she had shoved a knife into him.She planted a foot on his chest, and wrapped her taloned hands around his head and chin.Muscles straining along her arms, she twisted and with a wet splitting sound, ripped his head from his body."_Miserere nobis_."

Wind howled around them in a ferocious swirl.Noxious black smoke poured from the headless body as it jackknifed into a sitting position, claws swiping at nothing.Then it collapsed back.In Dee's hand, the head gnashed its teeth and screeched in anger.The anger turned to whimpers as both the head and body began to smoke as if invisible fire burned its flesh as it split, blackened and then, finally, turned to ash.The midnight breeze blew the ashes across the rooftop.

Dee then reeled and staggered back, her head falling forward like a wilted flower.Her entire body trembled, her wings began to shrivel and her form shrinking until once again she was the dark hair woman he'd seen in the bar.She collapsed and, shivering, curled to a fetal position her arms wrapped around her knees.Tzila murmured in her ear and hugged her with tiny arms. 

"This is a hell of a night," Logan said to himself and went to her."Why do I always pick the high maintenance gals?"He couldn't begin to understand what just happened.He wasn't certain if he wanted to know.His life was complicated enough.Dee jerked at his touch on her shoulder, but then relaxed.He gently pried her arms away from her knees."Hey, darlin'."

"Mr. Logan," she said, her voice barely audible.A huge sigh left her body and she turned her head.Her glazed eyes focused on him and her touch on his arm feathered across his skin."I am surprised you're still here.Especially after what you've just witnessed."

"I've seen worse.And neither am I in a position to pass judgment."

Logan was surprised to hear her chuckle at that.The chuckled turned into a racking cough.Logan turned her over, her long hair spilling over his arm.He checked for wounds and found none, her skin smooth and almost colorless.He shrugged off his leather jacket and wrapped it around her.Tzila flew to his shoulder, her silence indicating approval.At least she didn't try to rip his throat out.He picked Dee up in his arms and strode toward the stairwell door.

"Leave me be," she said, her head lolling against his chest."I'll be okay."

"Sorry darlin', it ain't in my makeup to leave naked, wounded women on rooftops." He jerked his head toward where Jack had turned to ash."And there may be more where he comes from."

"You don't know the half of it."A sad smile crossed her lips."Where are you taking me?"

"Somewhere safe."He kicked open the rooftop door and began descending the stairwell.

"Is this your heroic nature showing, Mr. Logan?"

"Heroic?"He lifted one eyebrow."That is one word people would never associated with my name."

"Then those people must be fools."


End file.
